Expert NEDs join F Word Academy ahead of national roll-out

Added by Love Business East Midlands | 22 October 2020

The F Word Academy, an online business finance resource featuring more than 100 videos, financial blueprints, templates, interactive advice, accountability, webinars and peer support has added two of the East Midlands leading business development experts to its executive team.

Stuart Ross, from High Growth, and Greg Simpson, from Press For Attention PR, join founder Serena Humphrey as Non-Executive Marketing and PR Directors respectively.

Having founded one of the most successful business coaching practices in the UK, receiving numerous awards and recognitions, Stuart has trained over 2,000 senior directors and business owners, coaching over 500 of them personally.

Whilse based in Nottingham, his portfolio is global, with clients in the USA, Dubai and Australia.

A former business journalist, Greg Simpson is a published author and speaker on PR and has run Press For Attention PR for over a decade. Last year, business support group Enterprise Nation named him one of the top five PR advisers in the UK.

Earlier this summer the trio worked together on a not-for-profit campaign to help business owners navigate the ever evolving challenges of Covid-19, with their facebook group reaching over 3,000 members within three just months.

Their appointment comes at a time when the UK’s beleaguered business owners need to ‘get back to basics, master their money and remember why they first started out on the bumpy road of entrepreneurship’, according to ‘‘The F Word Academy’’ founder Serena Humphrey.

She said: "This is a big message and it requires big thinking on a strategic and tactical level which is why I am delighted to bring Stuart and Greg onto the team. They are two highly respected and influential professionals that I have known and worked with on a variety of projects already but more crucially, they understand the challenges and the opportunities at stake here.

"With further financial uncertainty ahead, the goal is to get businesses ‘’back on track’’, recovering then building robustly with enough resilience for consistent financial success; better profits, stronger cash flow and higher business value."

Stuart Ross added: "Small businesses have a major role to play in getting the economy back on track, and we’re determined to play our part in making that happen.

"Serena launched The F Word Academy earlier this month locally and regionally and all of us that are a part of it really do empathise with its rapidly growing community.

"It really is unlike anything else out there right now or indeed that I have seen before and now we are going to help take this message wider as this is a national issue and also a national opportunity to change the way we think about building a business. I am very proud to be involved."

Greg Simpson said: "There’s no point pretending that running a business right now isn’t incredibly hard, we’re all experiencing that to some extent. However, what I am seeing already within the academy is that there is a huge opportunity out there for business owners.

"That might mean tweaking their current proposition, introducing new models, products and services or indeed going back to what first got them excited about being an entrepreneur in the first place. Now is the time to take a good hard look at what the business is doing for them as a business owner or indeed is NOT doing for them and to make changes. The F Word Academy can help you do just that."

Serena concluded: "This is something I have wanted to launch for years. I’ve had the vision but never had the time or the right technology platform to make it truly stand out and create the impact I want it to on a scale that will make the major difference and kind of impact I want it to.

"However, this year has forced me to find time to create that content because we need to make a step-change right now. Every day we hear about businesses struggling and for many of them, that need not be the reality. Right now the challenges are probably bigger than ever but I know I can help and I am not going to hoard my expertise or stand idly by whilst they struggle."

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